Regarding notifying you before taking action. They took this away after version 2011. This topic was started in July 2012 and they keep moving it to the next versions Feature Request area. An "Escalated" tag was placed on this topic which has amounted to absolutely nothing.http://forum.bitdefender.com/index.php?showtopic=35631

I use BD AV+ 2014 & as you say there are not that many settings, I always turn of AutoPilot & use User Mode instead as that gives a bit more control. The on access scanner I use custom settings, file types is set to scan all files, archive scanning is disables as anything would be picked up when extracted & saves the file system hit, traffic scan has all options ticked, miscellaneous has everything ticked & actions I switch sometimes from move to quarantine or deny access. I think the 2015 version has less settings.

I like the 2014 version as it has the games list/mode options that were removed in the 2015 version, this allows you to add your game exe's to a whitelist & means when you play the game you don't get any popups etc.